The First Death Eater
by usakeh
Summary: Voldemort initiates his very first Death Eater. His name? Tom Marvolo Riddle.


**_The First Death Eater_**

Tom Marvolo Riddle loved the hours between midnight and the first hint of dawn. He would go walking then. He would walk from one edge of the forest to the other; he would walk through the fields; he would walk around the lake, his black cloak flowing behind him, waving like the water in the wind. But that night it was different.

He could not have explained what drove him to be standing at the top of the Astronomy Tower. Even his face was utterly expressionless, so blank it betrayed absolutely nothing. Yet there he stood. His posture was straight, as always; his gaze was steady. He stared over the ledge, still fearless. Tom Marvolo Riddle had never been afraid of falling. Gravity would give into him, slowing to stop him as he hit the ground. He was sure of it. So why wasn't it enough?

_Climb higher_.

Tom pulled back from the ledge and looked up. There was nothing higher; this was the highest point on the entire school grounds, he thought, frowning.

_Look again_.

He did. He turned, stared, and, without showing even the slightest hint of surprise, began to climb. He could never see the cold steel bars until they appeared before him, pulling him out until even the castle seemed like nothing more than a small cluster of sculpted stone lying far, far below. He did not know where the ladder had come from; he only knew that it was right.

It was only when the long ladder flattened itself out into a thin, metal beam that Tom began to wonder. Was he supposed to go further? Where was he supposed to go? Why hadn't he ever–

_Just walk_.

"I see," the boy said aloud. His voice sounded strange at such a great height, and was absorbed almost immediately by the stillness. Tom shivered.

_Now_.

"All right." Tom shook his hair out of his eyes and carefully pulled himself up onto the thin, shimmering steel. He moved with such careful coordination it almost seemed as though he were playing out a part in some great cosmic dance planned out by time itself, something he could–

"Why, hello." This time the other voice broke the silence, coming straight out of the space before him. "You have done well." Tom took a deep breath. It couldn't be. He was alone. He had climbed up a ladder at the top of the Astronomy Tower and now he was on a long, thin beam, balancing after his every step. "Ha!" The sudden exclamation startled the boy and he stumbled down onto the beam itself, his hands clutching desperately at its sides. "You mean you really believe this is real? I would have thought you'd have more sense than that, Tom."

"This is real. But you are not. I must be imagining you." The words were spoken softly but distinctly, as if the boy were trying to remind himself that they were true.

"Oh, _no_. You are imagining this. But you are not imagining me." The voice was cold, confident. "Now, lean back."

"That's ridiculous. We are thousands of feet up in the air."

"I thought you did not fear falling."

"I do not. I would prefer to avoid it, however, if at all possible." Tom took a deep breath and began to lean backwards, finally allowing his hands to fall away from the bar and hanging from it, upside down.

"Most _excellent_." The voice paused. "Do you see it now?" Tom shut his eyes and opened them again, straining them to search through the darkness. What was he supposed–

He gasped.

"You see it now," the voice added smugly. He was not listening. His eyes were closed again and he was not breathing but all at once he saw the world spread itself out before him, breaking like a brittle sheet of glass. "Open your eyes." The voice was coming closer, but Tom still did not hear it. "_Open your eyes_." At last, the boy obeyed.

That was when he understood why he had never been afraid of falling and felt his mind flare up like a flame.

"It belongs to you." He was a beam of light spreading its way across the seas and he was the sound of the cities waking from their sleep and he was the heat of the desert spilling over onto the sand. "It belongs to you." The voice was louder now, flooding into the air around him as if it was his own. Perhaps it…

"It belongs to you and you, Tom, _belong to me_." The boy felt ice cold hands upon him, and the sudden sting of something cutting, burning its way into his skin. "Now _let go_."

He did.

* * *

Tom Marvolo Riddle awoke on the edge of the Astronomy Tower the next morning with his knife beside him and a skull-and-serpent insignia cut straight into his skin. 


End file.
